Long Summer Modified Gregorian Calendar
This proposed calendar is not a perpetual calendar or a lunar calendar. It is purely a 12-month solar calendar much like the current Gregorian calendar. This calendar is based on the number of days in each quarter being different due to the earth's eccentric orbit around the sun. If each quater is measured as the time between equinox and solstace, then the earth spends more time in the spring and summer quarters than in the winter and fall quarters. In the northern hemisphere each of the quarters are measured as follows: *The winter quarter is approximately 89 days. (Winter Solstace to Spring Equinox) *The spring quarter is approximately 93 days. (Spring Equinox to Summer Solstace) *The summer quarter is approximately 93 days. (Summer Solstace to Fall Equinox) *The fall quarter is approximately 90 days. (Fall Equinox to Winter Solstace) This calendar merely proposes to add days to the months in the longer quarters, and remove them from months in the shorter quarters. Quarters in this calendar are measured beginning with December-January-February as winter quarter. The result is 89 days in the winter quarter, 93 days in the spring quarter, 93 days in the summer quarter, and 90 days in the fall quarter. Benefits *Quarter lengths more accurately match the corresponding length of a solar quater by putting the 31-day months in the spring and summer months where the earth spends most of its time. This also illuminates the fact that earth's off-center orbit literally adds a few days to the spring and summer months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seasons1.svg *The 31-days months are consecutive making them easier to remember. *All of the months either have 30 or 31 days, except for December which is a 29-day month on non-leap years. *The year is 365 days in length, 366 on leap years, equal to one solar revolution. Leap years are computed the same as the Gregorian calendar. *There are six 29/30-day months in this calendar. That is two more than the Gregorian Calendar which only has four on standard years. This is beneficial because 29/30-days more closely matches the length of an actual lunar month of 29.53 days between moons. *Leap day occurs as the last day of the year which is a more intuitive time to lengthen the year by one day. *The shorter months happen intuitively during the time of year when the days are also shorter for most people. *Equinoxes and solstices occur about the same time every month. Drawbacks *The quarters are different lengths. The Gregorian calendar also has quarters of different lengths but these quarters differ even more than in the Gragorian calendar. In this calendar you have two 93-day quaters, and two 90-day quarters except in non-leap years where one of them is only 89 days. (Quarters in this calendar are measured beginning with December-January-February as winter quarter.) *A 29 day month is not desirable for reasons of regularity. One way to deal with this is to make December permanently a 30-day month, and make March 31 the new leap day. But that would cause a winter quarter one day longer than the actual winter quarter of 89 days. The point of this calendar is to more closely match the length of the actual solar quarters with the lengths of the months. *This calendar does not propose any major benefit that would necessarily be worth the undertaking of changing the current calendar system worldwide. For example, the week still starts on a different day every year. Daylight Saving Time option Daylight saving time could also be modified to occur on the Sunday closest to the equinoxes worldwide. This would make the day of setting clocks the same day in the Northern Hemisphere as in the Southern Hemisphere, making it standard for the first time worldwide. Daylight saving time in the northern hemisphere would be 6 months instead of the current 7 months or so. The southern hemisphere would also get to enjoy an equal 6-month day light saving time length while the northern hemisphere is in standard time.